NAME

virt-clone - clone existing virtual machine images

SYNOPSIS

virt-clone [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION

virt-clone is a command line tool for cloning existing virtual machine
images using the "libvirt" hypervisor management library. It will copy
the disk images of any existing virtual machine, and define a new guest
with an identical virtual hardware configuration. Elements which
require uniqueness will be updated to avoid a clash between old and new
guests.
By default, virt-clone will show an error if the necessary information
to clone the guest is not provided. The --auto-clone option will
generate all needed input, aside from the source guest to clone. An
interactive mode is available with the --prompt option, but this will
only ask for the minimum required options.

OPTIONS

Most options are not required. Minimum requirements are --original or
--original-xml (to specify the guest to clone), --name, and appropriate
storage options via -file.
-h, --help
Show the help message and exit
--connect=CONNECT
Connect to a non-default hypervisor. See virt-install(1) for
details
GeneralOptions
General configuration parameters that apply to all guest clones.
-o ORIGINAL_GUEST, --original=ORIGINAL_GUEST
Name of the original guest to be cloned. This guest must be shut off
or paused since it is not possible to safely clone active guests at
this time.
--original-xml=ORIGINAL_XML
Libvirt guest xml file to use as the original guest. The guest does
not need to be defined on the libvirt connection. This takes the
place of the "--original" parameter.
--auto-clone
Generate a new guest name, and paths for new storage.
An example or possible generated output:
Original name : MyVM
Generated clone name : MyVM-clone
Original disk path : /home/user/foobar.img
Generated disk path : /home/user/foobar-clone.img
If generated names collide with existing VMs or storage, a number is
appended, such as foobar-clone-1.img, or MyVM-clone-3.
-n NAME, --name=NAME
Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique
amongst all guests known to the hypervisor connection, including
those not currently active.
-u UUID, --uuid=UUID
UUID for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be generated.
If you specify UUID, you should use a 32-digit hexadecimal number.
UUID are intended to be unique across the entire data center, and
indeed world. Bear this in mind if manually specifying a UUID
StorageConfiguration
-f DISKFILE, --file=DISKFILE
Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the
backing store for the new guest's virtual disk. If the original guest
has multiple disks, this parameter must be repeated multiple times,
once per disk in the original virtual machine.
--force-copy=TARGET
Force cloning the passed disk target ('hdc', 'sda', etc.). By
default, "virt-clone" will skip certain disks, such as those marked
'readonly' or 'shareable'.
--nonsparse
Fully allocate the new storage if the path being cloned is a sparse
file. See virt-install(1) for more details on sparse vs. nonsparse.
--preserve-data
No storage is cloned: disk images specific by --file are preserved as
is, and referenced in the new clone XML. This is useful if you want
to clone a VM XML template, but not the storage contents.
NetworkingConfiguration
-m MAC, --mac=MAC
Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or the
value "RANDOM" is specified a suitable address will be randomly
generated. Addresses are applied sequentially to the networks as they
are listed in the original guest XML.
MiscellaneousOptions
--print-xml
Print the generated clone XML and exit without cloning.
--replace
Shutdown and remove any existing guest with the passed "--name"
before cloning the original guest.
-d, --debug
Print debugging information to the terminal when running the install
process. The debugging information is also stored in
"$HOME/.virtinst/virt-clone.log" even if this parameter is omitted.
--force
Prevent interactive prompts. If the intended prompt was a yes/no
prompt, always say yes. For any other prompts, the application will
exit.
--prompt
Specifically enable prompting for required information. Default
prompting is off.

EXAMPLES

Clone the guest called "demo" on the default connection, auto
generating a new name and disk clone path.
# virt-clone \
--original demo \
--auto-clone
Clone the guest called "demo" which has a single disk to copy
# virt-clone \
--original demo \
--name newdemo \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img
Clone a QEMU guest with multiple disks
# virt-clone \
--connect qemu:///system \
--original demo \
--name newdemo \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/newdemo.img \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/newdata.img
Clone a guest to a physical device which is at least as big as the
original guests disks. If the destination device is bigger, the new
guest can do a filesystem resize when it boots.
# virt-clone \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--file /dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
--mac 52:54:00:34:11:54

AUTHOR

Written by Kazuki Mizushima, and a team of many other contributors. See
the AUTHORS file in the source distribution for the complete list of
credits.

BUGS

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) Fujitsu Limited 2007, and various contributors. This is
free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License "http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html".
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.